Congressman gets 5-year sentence for sex offenses

September 29, 1995
Web posted at: 1:15 a.m. EDT

From Correspondent Jeff Flock

CHICAGO (CNN) -- He picked cotton as a child. He couldn't read
until he was 9. He also became a Rhodes scholar and was elected
to Congress. But it was a convicted Mel Reynolds who emerged from
Chicago's Criminal Courts Building Thursday, sentenced to five
years in prison for having sex with an underage girl and then
covering it up.

"He let his own personal needs for sexual gratification get in the
way of being a law-abiding normal citizen and he has simply
refused to accept his own conduct," said Cook County Prosecutor
Andrea Zopp. (150K AIFF sound OR 150K WAV sound) That conduct involved both phone sex and, a jury
found, numerous liaisons with then-16-year-old Beverly Heard.

"You blew it," said Judge Fred Suria, referring to Reynolds'
promising congressional career. "I think of all those things you
could have done for education, for those kids who will join gangs
because you weren't there to help. You threw it away."

"I think the judge was prepared to give him eight to ten years,"
said Reynolds' attorney, Sam Adams. "I think the reason he gave
him what he gave him was because, I thought, Reynolds' statement
in his own behalf ... was one of the most brilliant I've ever
heard."

Reynolds was unrepentant, continuing to deny guilt and claiming he
was the victim of a racist, politically motivated prosecution.
"When they shackle me like they shackled my slave ancestors and
take me off to jail," he told the court, "nobody will see me
crawl."

"Nobody's asking him to crawl into a corner," Zopp says. "I just
want the man to say, 'I did wrong, I'm sorry and let's move on.'
And I didn't hear those words come out of his mouth."

Reynolds has been ordered to prison next Thursday unless an
appellate court allows him to go free while he appeals his
conviction. His resignation from Congress takes effect October 1.